作者：AJ Glasser

Zynga的《Adventure World》是款融入解谜元素的探索冒险游戏。游戏将于下周登陆Facebook。

这是Zynga波士顿工作室的首款作品，这个工作室于2010年8月Zynga收购Conduit Labs后成立。该工作室在过去1年通过人才收购不断扩张，工作室已将Floodgate Entertainment纳入旗下。在过去12个月，其团队规模由16人扩张至35人，其中包括若干MMO游戏开发商Turbine前雇员。

《Adventure World》是款结合MMO和传统探险元素的电子游戏。Zynga波士顿总经理Nabeel Hyatt（游戏邦注：前Conduit Labs CEO）表示，游戏设置的玩家探索和前进方式同原版《Legend of Zelda》非常相似。和任天堂的《塞尔达》系列一样，《Adventure World》玩家通过沿途收集的工具或武器（如弯刀或鞭子）探索广阔地图，寻找宝藏。游戏画面会让我们回想起电影《夺宝奇兵》，其背景、装饰和界面是30年代风格。

Mountain from insidesocialgames.com

在本周初的发布演示会上，Hyatt展示了3个《Adventure World》地区场景（这包括在游戏昨天发布的35个场景中）：探险营地、山脉地图和黄金国地图。这些地区分布在5个跨国区域，是玩家加入探险社区的核心任务之一。地区地图的规模同《FarmVille》农场的扩充极限相当——这使得《Adventure World》成为虚拟空间较大的社交游戏之一。

谈到山脉地图和黄金国地图，Hyatt后拉镜头以全屏模式呈现完整地图画面，此时他的角色还未开始首个关卡。能够即刻综观整个地图会，会促使玩家探索其尚无法访问的地点，创造掌机探险视频游戏追求的的沉浸感。Hyatt还提到，《Adventure World》的运行速度是60帧/秒（游戏邦注：这在社交游戏中是个相当高的帧率）。

玩法包含点击在地图上所见的物体——例如，能收集的物体，或检验某褪色石地。每次行动都会消耗玩家的能量，能量还充当玩家生命值刻度，玩家每次触到陷阱或同野生动物战斗都会受到惩罚。这鼓励玩家通过策略探测和消除陷阱，避免同蛇或公绵羊打斗，这能够通过事前规划不同地图路线实现。Hyatt表示，玩家可以无需把握整个地图就开始探索，这给《Adventure World》带来重玩价值。

随着玩家的前进，角色会获得系列探险工具，比如上面提到的鞭子。工具根据玩家运用方式自动升级，与玩家所处关卡无关。每个地图都有“优先工具”，此工具最适合当前环境，这也是《Adventure World》社交元素的切入点。

Deep Jungle from insidesocialgames.com

和最近的《FrontierVille》扩充内容《Pioneer Trail》类似，《Adventure World》玩家可以在探险中雇佣好友。但和《Pioneer Trail》不同的是，玩家可以通过雇佣好友，接触好友所处等级的游戏内容。换而言之，你可以雇佣拥有较高等级鞭子的好友帮助你应对山脉地图的公绵羊。你雇佣好友的次数越多，《Adventure World》给予好友角色的“宾客能量”就越多，玩家最多能通过好友角色完成10次操作。除Facebook好友外，《Adventure World》玩家还可以在探险过程中“寻求”非玩家好友的协助。玩家每完成一张地图，探险社区就会多出一个可雇佣人员。玩家一次最多可雇佣10个人员。

Hyatt还简要展示组员在黄金国地图的作用。该地区的主要任务是以正确顺序将木块放置于闸道中，让平台上升至包含珠宝的台面。角色需移动木块，反复尝试顺序（消耗玩家能量）。若雇佣好友，玩家就可以将好友置于闸道，试验正确顺序（消耗“宾客能量”）。而且，若好友有小艇锚道具，就可以握住平台收集珠宝，绕过整个木块移动环节。这个小艇锚道具还可以让玩家探索其他地图的新地区。

Hyatt分享的最后一个地区是探险营地（游戏邦注：这是玩家的出发地）。玩家可在此购买探险辅助道具、营地装饰品以及所需日常用品。和《CityVille》一样，玩家获得免费日常用品的频率有时间限制，这迫使玩家需投入一定资金，方能开始自己的探险之旅。

Temple from insidesocialgames.com

《Adventure World》通过销售能量填充物、日常用品和特殊“小道具”（游戏邦注：如小艇锚）创收。有些道具可通过玩法解锁，而有些则需付费。有些会给玩法带来直接影响，如炸药道具能够炸掉地图上的部分岩石，而有些则会带来间接福利，如指南针道具会显示地图上的隐藏宝藏。

有趣的是，该工作室没有选择通过出售谜题和关卡提示创造收益。在其他传统探险和解谜游戏中，玩家为获得提示，获悉如何破解某难题，或找到隐蔽宝藏需放弃某些东西，通常是购买特殊道具或消费些许积分。Hyatt表示，通过游戏测试，Zynga波士顿工作室对游戏解谜的直观性颇有信心，玩家完全不需要暗示。若玩家无法把握整个广阔地图，只需点击屏幕的“Show Me”按键，镜头就会自动锁定玩家下个目标，玩家完全无需付出任何代价。

Hyatt表示，《Adventure World》将于下周上线。Zynga的上款新作《Empires & Allies》于6月发行，其巅峰MAU和DAU创历史新高，分别为5320万和770万。《FrontierVille》扩充内容《Pioneer Trail》于8月中旬发布，游戏目前的MAU是1970万，而DAU维持则在310万水平。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

A Closer Look at Zynga’s Adventure World

By AJ Glasser

Zynga’s Adventure World is an exploration adventure game for with puzzle elements. The game will launch on Facebook in the next week or so.

This is the first title to come from Zynga Boston, the studio formed following the Conduit Labs acquisition back in August 2010. That studio has expanded via a hire-acquisition in the last year to include Floodgate Entertainment. In the last 12 months, Zynga Boston has expanded from 16 people to 35, recruiting some team members from MMO developer Turbine.

Adventure World is built as a combination MMO and classic adventure video game. Zynga Boston General Manager Nabeel Hyatt — formerly CEO of Conduit Labs — likened it to the original Legend of Zelda in the way the game invites players to explore and advance. Like Nintendo’s Zelda franchise, Adventure World players work through large area maps on a quest for treasure using tools or weapons collected along the way, like a machete or a whip, for example. The visuals in-game reminds us of the original Indiana Jones films, with a nonspecific 1930s era feel to the settings, decoration and interface.

During a press demo earlier this week, Hyatt showed three out of the 35 areas Adventure World launches with today: Base Camp, a Mountains map, and an El Dorado map. The areas are divided up among five international regions the player eventually visits as part a central quest around joining the Adventure Society. Each map within an area is approximately as large as the largest possible farm expansion available in FarmVille — making Adventure World one of the bigger social games on Facebook in terms of virtual space.

On the Mountains map and the El Dorado map, Hyatt was able to pull back the camera in full screen mode to show the entirety of the map even before his Adventure World avatar had begun his first quest. Being able to see all over the map at once prompts the player to explore the places they can’t yet get to and creates a sense of immersion that console adventure video games strive for. Hyatt casually mentioned that Adventure World runs on 60 frames-per-second — a high frame rate for a social game.

Gameplay itself consists of clicking on things the player sees on the map — such as an item to be picked up, or a discolored patch of stone to examine. Each action costs the player energy, but energy also functions as a sort of hit point gauge where the player is penalized every time they trigger a trap or fight with a wild animal. This encourages players to be strategic in detecting and disarming traps, and also in how avoid fights with snakes and rams and such by planning alternative routes through the maps. It is possible, Hyatt says, to go through a map without seeing all parts of it — which makes Adventure World the kind of game you’d want to replay.

As the player progresses, their avatar will gain a set of adventure tools like the aforementioned whip. Depending on how the player uses these tools throughout the map (e.g. attacking snakes with the whip), these tools will level up independently of the player’s level. Each map has a “preferred tool” that will best lend itself to the environment, which is where the social element of Adventure World comes in.

Like the recently-released Pioneer Trail expansion for FrontierVille, players in Adventure World can recruit their friends to help out during adventures. Unlike Pioneer Trail, however, this game allows players to recruit their friends along with all their friends’ in-game progress saved as-is. In other words, you can recruit a friend with a higher-level whip than yours into your game in order to deal with attacking rams on a Mountains map. The more often you recruit this friend, the more “guest energy” Adventure World grants the friend character, ultimately allowing the player up to 10 different actions with their friend’s character. Aside from Facebook friends, Adventure World player can also “earn” non-playable character friends to assist them on adventures. Each time the player completes a map, a member of the Adventure Society becomes available for recruiting. The player can have up to 12 crew members recruited at a time.

Hyatt briefly demoed an area where a crew member could come in handy on the El Dorado map. The primary puzzle in this area involved pushing blocks onto switches in the correct order to raise a platform up to a dais containing a jewel piece. Alone, Hyatt’s character would’ve had to push blocks and determine the sequence through trial and error (which burns through his energy gauge). With a friend recruited, he could have the friend stand on switches to work through the sequence (burning through the “guest energy instead). Also, if that friend had a grappling hook gadget handy, the friend could have bypassed the entire block-pushing puzzle by grappling up to the dais to collect the jewel. This grappling hook tool also allows players to explore new areas in other maps.

The final area Hyatt shared with us was the Base Camp area where all players first start out. From here, players can purchase items that help out on adventures, decorations for the camp itself, and supplies needed before going out on adventures. Like CityVille, there is a time restriction on how fast the player can bring in supplies without paying premium currency, forcing the player to spend a certain amount of Base Camp instead of rushing right back out to the adventure maps.

Adventure World is monetized through the sale of energy refills, supplies and special “gadget” tools, like the grappling hook. Some of these gadgets can be unlocked through gameplay, while others are premium items. Some provide a direct influence on gameplay like the dynamite gadget that can blow up rocks blocking off parts of the map, while others provide a passive bonus like a compass gadget that reveals all hidden treasures on the map.

Interestingly, Zynga Boston hasn’t chosen to monetize hints for the puzzles and quests. In other classic adventure games and puzzle games, the player must give up something in order to get a hint on how to solve a puzzle or find an elusive piece of treasure on the map, usually buying a special item or taking a score penalty. Hyatt explains that through play testing, Zynga Boston is confident they’ve made the puzzles intuitive enough to where nobody will need a hint. And in case the large maps overwhelm a player’s eyesight, a “Show Me” button on the quest screen will automatically pan the camera to where the player’s next objective is at no cost to the player.

Adventure World is due to go live in the next week or so, according to Hyatt. Zynga’s last new game, Empires & Allies, launched in June and peaked at an all-time high of 53.2 million monthly active users and 7.7 million daily active users. The Pioneer Trail expansion for FrontierVille launched in mid-August and so far has 19.7 million MAU and has stabilized at 3.1 million DAU. You can follow the progress of these games with our AppData traffic tracking service for social games and developers.（Source：insidesocialgames）